Policy Development Process in the AfriNIC service region - AFPUB-2008-GEN-001

The initial policy development process used by AfriNIC was meant to be a transitional process. Now that AfriNIC has been well established, it is being proposed to revise the policy development process to increase participation from the community in the process.

2.0 The Policy Development Process (PDP)

2.1. A PDP Moderator Group (MG) will be set-up to moderate and coordinate the policy development process and discussions. It will consist of three(3) members of the community. One AfriNIC staff will also be providing support to the MG.

Note: The three(3) Moderator Group (MG) members will be nominated by the community during a face-to-face (f2f) open public policy meeting for a defined period.

The three (3) MG members shall be nominated for a 3-year term. The first for 1 year, the second for 2 years and the third for 3 years. AfriNIC will nominate one of it's staff members to the MG.

(a) Directly to the list by the author (b) Through the Moderator Group (MG) which would assist a member of the community in drafting the text for the proposed policy.

Note: Policies can be proposed by anyone from the community.

2.3. The proposed policy is posted on the mailing list
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. This mailing list is open to anyone from the community at all times and anyone can join the list for discussions.

2.4. The policy proposal is discussed on the mailing list and amended accordingly following the discussions.

2.5. After at least 30 days of discussions and comments on the mailing list, the policy is brought to the public open policy (face-to-face) meeting for a final round of discussions before the community endorses or rejects the policy through consensus.

Note: Consensus is defined as general agreement in the group. It will be the onus of the MG co-chairs to determine whether there is consensus or not.

2.6. If there is consensus at the open policy meeting, the process continues to step 2.7 below. If there is no consensus, step 2.4 will be repeated.

2.7. A 15-day last call for comments on the policy will be announced on the policy mailing list. During this 15-day period, comments agreed upon during the open public policy meeting will be incorporated into the policy.

2.8. After the 15 days, the Moderator Group will send a report to the AfriNIC Board of Trustees (BoT) which should contain the following as minimum information :

The date of the proposal

A Short summary of the online discussions

A Short summary of the face to face (f2f) discussions

Short summary of the Last-Call period

A recommendation of the PDP Moderator Group (MG) to the Board.

2.9 The policy should be ratified by the BoT at the subsequent Board Meeting and implemented by the AfriNIC staff thereafter.

Policy Development Process diagram (Click on image for larger version)